How to improve your lighting With lamps, doors, and the material tool. - Garry's Mod

So here we start with Rochelle and Zoey [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/b646e0gmconstruct0000.jpg[/img] Turn off the light here and we have a playground to practice lighting with. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/fa23begmconstruct0001.jpg[/img] After setting up some lights for flashyness [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/e05758gmconstruct0002.jpg[/img] We're gonna use the lamp tool, which many of you should be familiar with already. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/845103gmconstruct0003.jpg[/img] and we paint a happy little lamp right there, this'll be our secret. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/2e85ddgmconstruct0004.jpg[/img] We're gonna want a door prop. so look in construction till you find a nice door to use. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/c5e182gmconstruct0005.jpg[/img] Place the door behind them [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/5f438gmconstruct0006.jpg[/img] Take out the material tool with this material, and change the doors material to it. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/6cb325gmconstruct0007.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/f0dfcgmconstruct0008.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/76c8c7gmconstruct0009.jpg[/img] That's pretty much it. And here's a gif that flashes between done and before done [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/102d9cfinished.gif[/img] It adds shadows to placed where you'd probably expect them to be, but the tradeoff is that they make shadows grainy as fuck. So yeah Sometimes the difference is minor, sometimes it is dramatic

Wrenches for you.

That's pretty handy

Forgot to mention you can color the door invisible if need be [img]http://cubeupload.com/files/34b32bd1canals080001.gif[/img]

May I ask what settings you put your lamps to? I figure it's a matter of messing around enough to get the hang of it, but I'm still unable to get a happy medium that works.

Well the darker the color of the lamp the less light it produces, I know that much

It would be nice to see an overhead picture, To more or less show how far you have the lights and lamps

Doesn't really matter actually, as long as the door is in the light somewhere and colored with the material it works.

Well I guess I got some of the shadows to show up :~ Still can't get the sharp ones to work [media] [img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6252145/gmod/light_test.png[/img] [/media] Still thanks for the idea of multiple small lamps around the model.

Is there actually a command to turn off the standard lighting or did you just deactivate a lamp you created before? 2nd step was just adding Light Bulbs or not? How did you achieve such a HD effect with the lamp in the 3rd step? Just combining lamps + colored Light Bulbs or what? Great tutorial by the way!

There's a tool for turning off the ugly shadows. [url]http://www.garrysmod.org/downloads/?a=view&id=107632[/url]

[QUOTE=wraithcat;26412693]There's a tool for turning off the ugly shadows. [url]http://www.garrysmod.org/downloads/?a=view&id=107632[/url][/QUOTE] I appreciate your help but how is that supposed to answer one of my 3 questions?

[QUOTE=The Combine;26407529]Is there actually a command to turn off the standard lighting or did you just deactivate a lamp you created before? 2nd step was just adding Light Bulbs or not? How did you achieve such a HD effect with the lamp in the 3rd step? Just combining lamps + colored Light Bulbs or what? Great tutorial by the way![/QUOTE] 1. the fuck are you talking about for the first question 2. light bulbs for flashyness 3. I unno what you're talking about with "HD" effect, but I guess just usin the lamps and colored light bulbs yeah

[QUOTE=The Combine;26412755]I appreciate your help but how is that supposed to answer one of my 3 questions?[/QUOTE] By standard lightning I assumed you meant the stock source shadows. Sorry.

The Combine was asking about turning off the lights so you have a clean slate. It's the colourable room in Construct. There's a switch to turn lights on and off. Turn them off with the switch.

btw Having the door within a light bulb light instead of a dynamic lamp does nothing. It only works with dynamic lamps, nothing else.

the best way to get the lamp-casted shadows to look good is to take a picture of the characters with just the lighting (using a lightbulb where the lamp is to emulate the effect) and then make the characters matte gray. you can gaussain blur it up etc and paste the shadows on top

Alright, thanks for answering. Defenitely gonna try this out!

So the distance between the lamp and the backround effects how accurate shadows it will make?

[QUOTE=Talishmar;26431746]So the distance between the lamp and the backround effects how accurate shadows it will make?[/QUOTE] It's random how much it wants to help sometimes so sometimes it'll be a huge difference and sometimes it won't help at all.

Did not know this.